Southampton Common Reviews Summary

Outdoor Activities

Pros:

• "You can enjoy this beautiful place playing football, cricket or just exercise."
• "It's large enough to hold a fair at Easter and still leave plenty of space for people to continue running and walking their dogs."
• "The parkrun kicks off at 9am every Saturday here, near the children's playground, you can't miss it."
• "A great place for any outdoor activity whether it be football badminton frisbee kite flying you can do it there."
• "Walking and cycling are the main two activities."
• "Great for families, joggers or dog walking."
• "Every saturday it hosts a 5K Parkrun, and is also popular with joggers and dog-walkers generally."

Cons:

• "Cyclists using non cycle paths, possibly because signage has worn off paths, and not warning pedestrians as approached from behind. Dangerous."
• "The only downside is people riding Escooters at great speed, very dangerous with little ones running around."
• "Normally really enjoy Southampton common but took my two children on their bikes today and spent most of the time avoiding piles of dog mess!"
• "Wouldn't advise going through the common at night with earphones in however."
• "Unfortunately it is not really safe at night, the Easter fair is very noisy and smelly."
• "The common has the highest rates of all the city centre parks for muggings, and assault, both physical and sexual."
• "However as good as this sounds, I've been told by event security that after dark the bushes and woodlands are infamous locally as a dogging area and should be avoided."

Children's Play Area

Pros:

• "A good children's play park and a few lakes where you can feed the birds."
• "The new park is good for a varied age range of children."
• "The playground is newly built and really big, with a water area and lots to play on."
• "Perfect for walks all year round, the Hawthorns offers good hot food and drinks, the playground is great for all ages."
• "Includes a very shallow pool in summer for children to play in."
• "The play area for kids is big and very nice."
• "Saw an adventure play ground with a zip wire for younger children as well as equipment for the older ones."

Cons:

• "That was a bit disappointing, it's new and it has lots of toys, however they used far too much sand, and sand plus rain, it's not really a good combination."
• "What was disappointing was the children's play area. It is so much less than what was planned."
• "There's a kids park that isn't worth going to in the winter due to the amount of sand and water they've put in the park."
• "The area where the playground used to be hasn't been finished off, many of the paths have pot holes, the woods need some attention."
• "The paddling pool, is now demolished, the council begun that project at the start of the summer."
• "The play area is ok as far as play areas go, but the best in the area though, down side is the sand (no protection for children falling etc), dinner of the equipment was broken (not cared for) and one of the biggest issues was there is no shelter from the sun, plenty of places to sit but no shelter."
• "Took our three and a half year old granddaughter to the play park this morning and was very disappointed at the dirty condition of the place."

Parking and Accessibility

Pros:

• "There are usually plenty of parking spaces in Cemetery Road (free for 2 hours) or try to find somewhere to park along Hill Lane."
• "You can park in various locations around the perimeter."
• "Good open spaces and we could park near the location of the games on a side road."
• "You can access it from a number of entrances, there is parking but Sundays are free."
• "Some free parking at weekends off The Avenue."
• "There is also the added bonus of free parking for up to 4 hours."
• "Plenty of parking not too far away.....perfect!"

Cons:

• "I wish the car park was bigger because parking on the road is a problem."
• "It's ok but it does tend to be overcrowded and I don't enjoy trying to park which is time limited and they charge for the actual car park."
• "The council have removed all on street parking in favour of a bike lane all the way down hill lane."
• "Highly recommend but can be difficult to park on an extremely busy sunny day."
• "Really nice place although parking was quite small for the size of the place."
• "Lovely common. Confusion over the parking."
• "However, I would avoid the area after dark."